July2019
Review Dragon Quest Builders 2 - Beating Minecraft At Its Own Game
Building a new legacy
Though the Minecraft formula has been iterated on to hell and back, Square Enix managed to offer up an interesting take on the sandbox classic with Dragon Quest Builders. All the blocky aesthetics and open-ended crafting were present and accounted for, but these things were all couched within a wider narrative arc that included...
June2019
Review The Last Remnant Remastered - An RPG With Fine Ideas Scuppered By A Lack Of Clarity
A remnant of a different time
You’d be forgiven if, when watching the surprise announcement of The Last Remnant Remastered coming to Switch, your first thought was “What?” Though the The Last Remnant has largely been forgotten in the current gaming industry, it once hopefully represented the future of Square Enix, with the president of the...
Review Collection of Mana - Expensive, But Ultimately Worth Every Penny
It's Mana from Heaven
While Square's Seiken Densetsu series continues to this very day, it's the two SNES / Super Famicom outings on which the franchise arguably built its enviable reputation. Seiken Densetsu 2 – better known in the west as Secret of Mana – is one of the finest RPGs ever made, while its sequel has only been held back from global...
May2019
Review Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age - This Is How You Handle A Remaster
Vaanderful
2006 was an interesting time for the Final Fantasy series, as Square returned to a single-player driven entry in the series after the MMO experiment of Final Fantasy XI. The development of Final Fantasy XII was rocky to say the least, as its protracted five-year development cycle cost Square close to thirty-five million dollars and its...
April2019
Review Final Fantasy X | X-2 HD Remaster - Two Games In One Remarkable Switch Collection
The final word on these fantasies
2001 represented an exciting time in video games, as the industry began a shift to newer hardware and started to move past the growing pains of figuring out 3D game development in the previous generation. As the tenth mainline entry in the series, Final Fantasy X had a lot riding on it, as all waited with...
Kweh! Kweh!
Esoteric and sprawling as it may be, the Final Fantasy series has always been unified by certain persistent themes, images, and music tracks, and one of the most recognizable of these continuities is that of the chocobo, the goofy-looking species of bird mounts that show up in most of the main games. Over the past few decades, Square...
Review Final Fantasy VII - A Timeless RPG Classic That's Nonetheless Beginning To Show Its Age
Better late than never, right?
The release of Final Fantasy VII in 1997 was a watershed moment for both Square and the role-playing game genre as a whole, forever changing the status quo moving forward. After the previous six games had seen a release on Nintendo platforms, this marked the first time (of many) that Square’s flagship series would be...
February2019
Review Final Fantasy IX - A Strong Entry In The Classic Series Despite Some Rough Edges
PRINCESS!?!?
In January of 2000, Square (not yet merged with Enix) made big waves in the industry with the official announcements of its next three main Final Fantasy projects, each of which was being developed with different audiences in mind. Final Fantasy X was to continue pushing the series towards new horizons by releasing on a next gen...
November2018
Review World of Final Fantasy Maxima - A Gentle Introduction To The Legendary RPG Series
Pretty honking good
Final Fantasy is a name that’s become synonymous with the JRPG genre; over the decades there have been dozens of mainline releases and spinoffs that iterate on the tried-and-true formula in unique ways. The latest entry in the numbered franchise—Final Fantasy XV—was a bit of a departure for the series, marking the first...
October2018
Review The World Ends With You: Final Remix - A Stylish Reimagining Of The DS Cult Classic
That power is yet unknown
Nintendo certainly transformed the gaming landscape when it launched the Nintendo DS line of systems, offering up a distinct two-screen experience that had seldom been attempted before in hardware. Though there were plenty of first-party releases through the years that did a great job of showing off the dual-screen concept,...
September2018
Review Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition HD - An Inferior Clone Of An Already Divisive Game
Not quite fit for a king
It took Square Enix twelve years to finally finish development on Final Fantasy XV, and while the end result was a good game by many measures, it also felt needlessly bloated and meandering in many ways. There’s a saying going around now that Final Fantasy XV went from being the game that would never come out, to being the...
July2018
Review Octopath Traveler (Switch)
A direct path to RPG bliss
The Bravely Default games on the 3DS did a fantastic job of resurrecting the gameplay and feel of some of Square’s oldest games, employing a style that stayed true to genre roots while making modern changes wherever needed. When it was announced that the Bravely team would be tackling a new RPG on the Switch, fans were...
March2018
Review Fear Effect: Sedna (Switch eShop)
When gene splicing goes wrong
Fear Effect: Sedna is the answer to a question only a select few dedicated gamers of a certain age were asking. It's the Kickstarter-funded sequel to two cult action games and an unreleased third game from the PS1 era. If that sounds like a slightly odd list of ingredients for a modern Switch game, then you're onto...
February2018
Review Dragon Quest Builders (Switch)
Crafting your own destiny
Having spent plenty of time questing, building and defending its virtual settlements on myriad other platforms - including fellow portable, PlayStation Vita - Dragon Quest Builders has finally brought its masonry wares to Nintendo Switch. Question is, can Square-Enix’s genre mashup add anything new to the handheld’s...
January2018
Review Lost Sphear (Switch eShop)
Lost and found
By this point in time, JRPGs have come quite a long way since their humble beginnings, and it seems like every new release is trying to find a way to reinvent the wheel once more with a flashy new battle system or premise. Even so, there’s a certain kind of charm to the relative simplicity of early JRPGs, and that’s what Tokyo RPG...
Review Romancing SaGa 2 (Switch eShop)
Heir to the empire
To this day, there is still a number of prestigious Japanese role-playing games western audiences have not had the opportunity to play. Up until recently, Romancing SaGa 2 was one of these titles. First released in Japan in 1993 on Super Famicom, the second instalment actually counts as the fifth entry in Akitoshi Kawazu’s SaGa...
October2017
Review Spelunker Party! (Switch eShop)
Spikes and boulders and traps, oh my!
Revitalizing a decades old series is never an easy task, but Spelunker Party! manages to be a decent return while adding good multiplayer functionality. Don’t let the title throw you off. It’s easy to assume this is some kind of minigame collection or something along the lines of another Mario Party. That...
March2017
Review I Am Setsuna (Switch eShop)
Wondering how to pronounce 'Setsuna'
Much has been made of the launch line-up for the Nintendo Switch, with some describing it as underwhelming and lacking in exciting software besides The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild. That's certainly debatable, and one game that may have slipped under some people's radars is I Am Setsuna, a JRPG that...
January2017
Review Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (3DS)
Return of the King
In addition to a steady stream of top-quality games, the 3DS' RPG library is filled with the sort of lifetime achievements most consoles can only dream of: a hat trick of Monster Hunters, two to four Fire Emblems (depending on your perspective), scores of Shin Megami Tensei titles, and enough Etrian Odysseys to field a curling...
September2016
Review Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past (3DS)
Islands in the Sun
Whether you know it as Dragon Quest or Dragon Warrior, Yuji Horii's enduring role-playing series has been delighting fans and inspiring adventurers consistently since 1986. Like its Square-Enix stablemate Final Fantasy, each Dragon Quest is a standalone story, with shared elements and lore connecting it to other entries; in...
June2016
Review Mario Hoops 3 on 3 (Wii U eShop / DS)
Going for a slam dunk
From his first venture into Karting through to competing in the Olympics, Mario has been spending plenty of time taking part in activities other than Princess saving. In 2007 (European release) Mario and his mates tried their hands at shooting a few hoops on Nintendo DS in Mario Slam Basketball (aka Mario Hoops 3-on-3 in the...
February2016
Review Bravely Second: End Layer (3DS)
This’ll ring a bell
When JRPG giant Square Enix brought Bravely Default to the 3DS back in 2013, it took an old-is-new-again approach, bringing the feel of golden age Final Fantasies — four heroes, airships, crystals and castles included — to Nintendo's newest handheld. The result felt like a truly classic adventure with all mod cons, and it...
Review Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Wii U eShop / GBA)
Tactical Fantasy Action
It wasn't that long ago that things were going so well. With just one member of the opposing clan left against the three on your team, wrapping up this mission seemed to be straightforward enough. Then he took out your mighty Bangaa warrior and is now causing your sword guy plenty of trouble on account of the fact he returns...
January2016
Review Final Fantasy Explorers (3DS)
The Imitation Game
Despite the gravitas which comes with the Final Fantasy name, it's impossible to approach Final Fantasy Explorers without comparing it to Capcom's phenomenally successful Monster Hunter series. The game is a blatant attempt to ape the same concept, offering team-based monster-slaying with plenty of crafting opportunities and many...
September2014
Review Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (3DS)
A rousing encore
When Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy arrived in the Summer of 2012 it was an entertaining, brilliantly constructed celebration of the venerated Square Enix franchise. It combined a charming aesthetic, plenty of content through its music pieces and a simple, functional control scheme. A little over two years later we have Theatrhythm...
